"Welfare state" Finland has a more competitive economy than the US

[eridani]

http://www.eoionline.org/blog/finlands-model-shows-respect-for-all/

I just returned from a trip to Finland to visit old friends. I brought home a bill from a hospital.

You may wonder how these two things connect. The bill from the hospital was for a friend of mine. She needed a new hip. So for five days in the hospital, the surgery, the surgeon’s salary, the artificial hip, and all the necessary care and medicine, she paid $224. That’s it. Period. No co-insurance , no donut hole for prescriptions, no premium, no co-pay.

The Finnish government takes care of the health care bill, and insures secure retirement pensions, at about 60 percent of your best five years of income. The government enables family leave to care for your kids for their first years of life, as well as child care with well-paid and educated teachers and caregivers. Of course there is free universal K-12 education, which is ranked the best in the world. University education is paid for, and includes a living stipend. As a worker, you get at least five weeks of vacation. Everyone gets universal paid sick days.

Some people would argue that such a system would push down economic activity. In Finland, this foundation of security enables private business activity. The World Economic Forum ranks Finland as the third most competitive economy in the world, ahead of the U.S. Grant Thornton, a worldwide giant in business auditing, ranks Finland fifth in the world, thanks to its “business operating environment, economics & growth, science & technology, labour & human capital, and financing environment.”

[Prophet 451]

1. That's because corporations have decided...

...that the USA is going to be their source of cheap labour. They'll sell to the Asian market and maybe to the Euro markets that still ensure decent livings for their citizens. But their aim has always been to have a labour pool so poor and so desperate that they'll work for pennies and they've decided that the USA are going to be their labour pool. Everything they direct politicians to do is aimed either at depressing wages or making people more deseprate by taking away anything that stops them starving in teh streets.

[pampango]

3. 3/4 of Finnish workers are in unions, trade is 2/3 of the economy, income equality is high.

11% of US workers are in unions, trade is 1/4 of the economy and income equality is rock bottom.